


For The New Life

by Leni



Category: Black Jewels - Anne Bishop
Genre: Brotherly Bonding, Difficult questions, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-25 08:11:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2614604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leni/pseuds/Leni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucivar and Daemon must spend time together. Conversation happens.</p><p>Set after <i>Queen of Darkness</i>. <b>Spoilers for <i>Zuuluman</i></b>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For The New Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WriteItSmall (scribblemyname)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemyname/gifts).



> Written for Scribble_MyName at [Comment Fic](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/572598.html?thread=80080822#t80092342). Prompt: **I'll burn your kingdom down**

He and Daemon had been tossed into the study by their female relatives, as they'd been found guilty of 'fussing too much' around a laboring Marian. As if a husband didn't have privileges when his wife was in pain. Who else would hold Marian's hand, and resign himself to broken bones while he heard his beloved curse him to Hell and back?

Not Lucivar, apparently.

"They'll call you if they need you, Prick," his brother tried to console him.

Lucivar glared at him. Daemon was the one who'd near panicked when Marian's pains had come ahead of schedule. While Jaenelle had been thrilled that a member of the family would be born within the walls of SaDiablo Hall, Daemon had been driving the servants insane with his contradicting orders.

Good thing that the servants knew to listen to Mrs. Beale instead, when push came to shove. Lucivar had the feeling that it had been their cook who had proposed first that the Prince - and his brother, for good measure - be kept away from the birthing room.

"It's your fault, Bastard," he told Daemon.

Daemon looked mulish at the accusation. "Everybody knows you need hot water during a birth."

"But not an entire pool worth of it!"

They glared at each other for a moment, but both subsided quickly enough. It would do no good to a Purple Dusk witch who needed to focus on bringing a new life into the world for the next few hours, if the rash tempers of the Black and the Ebon-gray got loose. It was bad enough that Lucivar was already a hair away from riding the killing edge, too aware that any childbirth bed was a risk for the witch upon it, even with the best Healer in the three Realms at her side. The only reason he'd walked away from his wife was because his Queen had commanded him - and Marian had given her full agreement to the idea. 

Daemon was only a step behind him, ever willing to walk with his brother into battle.

It had been easier when they'd faced the bitch-Queens and their courts, instead of their own lovers. They hadn't ever considered obeying _them_ , not even under the pain of the Ring of Obedience. 

"Marian will be fine," Daemon offered, the words a token of peace.

Lucivar nodded, accepting both the words and their intent. He got up and walked to the cabinet at the far wall of the L-shaped room. Using a burst of his Red Jewel, he unlocked it and retrieved one of the wine bottles their father had put there. He met Daemon's raised eyebrow with a smirk. "The old man needed every drop of this, to be able to deal with the coven."

Daemon let out a laugh. "Oh, those are not Father's," he explained. "They're mine, for after _I_ deal with Jaenelle and the Territory Queens who come calling."

Lucivar chuckled. The coven may have grown in years, and they certainly had more responsibilities as they'd settled as ruling Queens and mothers, but when they came together they were still the seventeen-year-old witches he'd met over a decade ago.

He motioned at his brother to serve them a glass, and then another, and another. It felt nice that the tension was gone. It would do no good to get into a fight with Daemon, not even to let out some steam. The room was too small to indulge in their shows of power, either physical or through their Jewels, and besides...

"Cat has trapped us here, hasn't she?"

Daemon also glanced toward the door, where a barrier shifted through the colors of the Rose, the Green, and the Red. It looked as thin as a paper, and by rights a single use of any of their Jewels - as they both wore Birthright Red - should have broken through it. But their attempts had ended in nothing but a headache, as the power of the shield seemed to constantly change so that it never matched the target they'd pictured as they released their power.

It wasn't _stronger_. Just... trickier.

Twilight's Dawn truly fit Jaenelle better than the Ebony Jewels ever had.

Daemon sent another tendril of power at the barrier, and as it had happened the other times, both watched as the darkest power in the Realms was calmly but forcibly swatted away, much as if it was a naughty child being warned away from fresh cookies. "Our Queen commands, brother," Daemon said with a small sigh.

"Ah, but she's not the Queen anymore," Lucivar said, trying to copy Cat's tone in what had become her most used catchphrase. And the most needed, too, as Kaeleer refused to lose its Queen.

The Territory Queens might not bend their knee before the Dark Throne anymore, but they answered to Jaenelle just as they had to the ruler of Ebon Askavi. They just did it over tea and scones instead of at an official Court. In fact, considering how many Court sessions Lucivar had attended where the coven had plied him with tea and scones, he doubted that things had changed much at all.

Cat might never have wanted to rule, and her friends might be kind enough to give her the pretense that she needn't to. But when they needed her, SaDiablo Hall was their first stop, and Jaenelle would always grant them an audience - even as she claimed not to be their Queen anymore.

Daemon snorted. "And Father does not write a dozen notes every month explaining there's no space in the outer Circles of the Dark Court, because there _is_ no Dark Court."

"Still?" Lucivar chuckled.

"It's getting better," Daemon said. "It used to be a couple dozen every _week_."

Lucivar laughed along with his brother, but quieted when he found an inconsistency in Daemon's tale. "Shouldn't you be getting those applications? Father has retired from the living realms, after all."

Daemon shrugged. "It seems people find it easier to brave the Dark Mountain, and perhaps ask for passage through the Gates into Hell for an interview, than to come see me at the Hall. Can't say I complain."

"Hell?" Lucivar wondered aloud, growing puzzled, "but Father stays at the Keep, with Geoffrey."

Daemon's expression turned into a mischievous grin. "Hush-" and he did put a finger to his lips. "It's taken us long enough to plant the rumors, and they _do_ cut some into the list of hopefuls."

Lucivar let out a roar of laughter.

It felt good, after the stress of the last hour. "I wish Father was here," he said. But even had they had enough time to send a message to the Keep, it was doubtful that Saetan would have come. The birth of a new grandchild wasn't for a Guardian to enjoy, their father would claim. It would take at least a couple days to kick that notion out of his head, Lucivar thought, grinning a little at the thought of the challenge.

"Poor Papa," Daemon said, eyeing him.

Daemon knew him too well.

"I'll do nothing he won't deserve," Lucivar promised. "He always said there was nothing more important than family, and he's the one who set up the bar of how important is a new addition to this family." 

Too late, he wondered if he'd said too much, but Daemon nodded in understanding.

"True," Daemon said. "Our brother's life was balanced against the whole history of a Territory, and it won out. So did our lives, come to that."

True. Askavi had been held in hostage, in exchange for Lucivar's continued existence. As had Hayll, in exchange for Daemon's. A last attempt made by their father to protect his stolen boys, and one that had been grudgingly obeyed by the bitches who's ruled those Territories.

Not even they had dared to cross the High Lord like that, to rob him of one of his sons' lives. Not when Zuuluman was a silent reminder of Saetan's power.

"You know?" Lucivar asked, unwilling to say out loud the name of that forgotten Territory.

And forgotten it was, any tangible proof of it gone for over forty centuries before he and Daemon had been born. None but a few knew that name, and they were either older than Saetan or had learned the story of how the High Lord of Hell, then the only Black-Jeweled Black Widow male in the world, had avenged the cruel death of his newborn third son.

Lucivar couldn't have said why he hadn't expected Daemon to know about Zuuluman, except a vague impression that their father wouldn't have wished to burden his true heir (his mirror, as Saetan often called Daemon) with the true depths of their power.

Especially when Saetan himself accepted that Daemon's power ran even deeper than his own.

"I know," Daemon agreed. "And you're right. Saetan has already proved that his sons mean the world to him. He should do the same by his grandchildren."

Lucivar should have let it go, he knew. But Daemon would not have children of his own, not as long as Jaenelle lived, but he _had_ the power, and he felt as bonded to this family as Saetan must have to his, so long ago. Didn't he? "Do you...?" Lucivar started, then hesitated. It wasn't an easy question to ask, but he needed to know. Should that time ever come, he wanted to know what limits the Sadist had placed for himself - if any. He poured himself a full glass of wine and swallowed it complete. "Would you do it, Bastard? Would you...?" Lucivar found himself at a loss of words. How did one describe what Father had done to Zuuluman? He hadn't slaughtered them nor spilled a single drop of blood, yet the whole Territory had vanished because the High Lord had wished it.

Not even the isles they'd occupied had remained.

Lucivar understood of battlegrounds, and how to fight both with his Jewels and his weapons. But the methods of a Black Widow - much less a male one! - were a mystery to him.

"Would I spin a web that would take out our enemies and everything related to them?" Daemon provided.

Lucivar nodded, still speechless and now wishing he hadn't asked.

Daemon's eyes didn't glaze over, but his smile sharpened into the gesture Lucivar had seen at several courts in Terreille, right before the Sadist burned them to the ground. Then, in that purr that served his brother's worst moods so well, "What do you think, Prick?"

With a shake of his head, Lucivar reminded himself that this was his brother. That they'd stood together in many a battlefield, the Black and the Ebon-gray unstoppable unless they stood at odds. That even now, Daemon was keeping him company, standing vigil while Marian brought a new child for them all to spoil and love.

This was Daemonar's Unka, and if someone took his boy and tortured him as had been done to that baby brother of theirs, so long ago, Lucivar would go to his knees and beg his brother. Not for mercy, not this time. But to take revenge in his boy's name.

"I think you're my brother, Daemon."

The Sadist looked deep into Lucivar's eyes, and found the acceptance that had been there since the two of them were slaves in Terreille. The hard lines faded from his brother's features, leaving a small relieved smile in its place.

It had been the right answer.

 

The End  
13/11/14


End file.
